


If Ever

by magikfanfic



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Backstory, M/M, Pre-Rogue One, Slight Mentions of Child Abuse, slightly nsfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 00:46:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10753218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magikfanfic/pseuds/magikfanfic
Summary: “I broke the vase on purpose.”They are tangled together, a heap of unclothed limbs, skin against skin, warming each other all over in the chill of the breeze that finds its way into every room in the temple, every room in all of Nijedha, no matter what the structures are made of, no matter how sturdy or insulated.2017 Spiritassassin weekPrompt 5: Confessions





	If Ever

“I broke the vase on purpose.”

They are tangled together, a heap of unclothed limbs, skin against skin, warming each other all over in the chill of the breeze that finds its way into every room in the temple, every room in all of Nijedha, no matter what the structures are made of, no matter how sturdy or insulated. It's just how it works, and Baze does not mind it so much anymore, not when he can use it as an easy excuse to spend the night like this, pressed together, wrapped up, even if Chirrut fusses about how his hair gets into his mouth, even though Baze is sure to be pushed to the very edge of the bed, right into the wall, while his companion spreads and kicks and flails. He thinks that he would sleep in much more uncomfortable positions just so long as he could spend the moments with Chirrut, wrapped and covered and completely lost in him; he never sleeps better than when they sleep together, when he can feel the rise and fall of Chirrut’s chest as he breathes or listen to the mumbled prayers that fall from his lips even when he is dead to the rest of the world. Sometimes Baze will just press his ear or his hand or his lips to Chirrut’s chest--depending on the message he is trying to send--to focus on the workings of his heart where it lies deep deep inside him, as far away as if it were in another galaxy it seems, pumping and steady and dear. Dear like everything about Chirrut is dear even the million and a half things about him that can be frustrating. 

Like odd little confessions made in the middle of the night when their fingers are flitting, making it harder to concentrate. Making it harder for Baze to concentrate at least, though Chirrut never seems perturbed. Chirrut is the type of man who can carry on ten things at once. Chirrut can run his hands over Baze’s back, drawing quick lines with his fingers, pressing into the skin enough to draw shudders and moans from his partner, all the while discussing the theological distinctions between two books on the Force and expecting Baze to contribute to the discussion when all he can manage to do is suck marks onto Chirrut’s thighs that will bloom pink and purple like flowers, marks that Chirrut threatens to showcase like inkwork, teases that he will throw his robes wide the next day, stalk around the temple courtyard in the altogether and let everyone see Baze’s handiwork for themselves. It should be an empty threat, but nothing that Chirrut says is a completely empty threat; there is always the possibility lingering there, like something dark and reflective at the bottom of a pool of water waiting to be reached for and picked up, that Chirrut will go through with what he says in order to prove a point, a point to the masters, a point to Baze, a point to himself, a point to the Force; it’s hard to say. Chirrut has so many people watching him, so many people--and things if the Force counts as a thing, maybe it is a person, too, maybe it is all people, maybe it is cognizant fleeting energy or maybe it is as insouciant as the breeze on Jedha, touching everything, knowing nothing--expecting things of him that he feels like he needs to make points, needs to prove himself constantly. Most of the time, though, proving himself means showing that he is him even when others might wish him not to be. 

How anyone could want Chirrut to be other than what he is seems unfathomable to Baze because he loves every little bit of this man. Loves the wild, reckless way that he throws himself heedlessly into danger after danger, trusting Baze to be at his back, trusting Baze to follow him up, just trusting Baze to catch him when, if ever, he falls. And he does fall. In more ways than one. Not just the physical tumbles, for those are always the easiest, always the ones that he springs back from, arms wide, shouting, like a fool, that he is fine even as he limps on a twisted ankle, even as he hides an oozing cut, even as his face turns yellow and purple from a bruise, even as the healers set a break. He is fine, he is fine. He is always fine by his own accounting, always ready to go again, always ready for the next adventure, the next ill-advised thing. Chirrut is constantly running, bright as the strange fires that happen in the sands when the skeleton trees that survive there are struck by wayward lightning in the weeks before the rains. Baze has watched quite a few of those from the landings of the stairs that wind around the outside of the temple, watched the curling smoke, watched the bright bright gleam of the fire as it consumes until it exhausts everything within its reach and dies out; it is always a quick process, always over in an hour or less because those groves of trees are small and sometimes spread out across great distances. Flash, burn, gone. Flash, burn, gone. He could not bear to see Chirrut flicker and fade out like that, would stand beside him always with sticks and twigs and chaff to feed into the furnace of his flame to watch it burn, burn bright and high and always. Baze will tend him always; Baze is good at tending things. 

The harder falls are when Chirrut, Force soaked, Force loving, Force loved, seems to tire of it, all of it, draws himself back and away, hides his head in the corner and just prays because the world is too much sometimes, and Baze understands this feeling, sinks into it far more than Chirrut does even if the things that lead him there are different. Baze and the Force have no real understanding, have no actual conversations, no knowledge of each other that he knows except for a sort of body warmth that one gets standing in the sun. It barely makes an impression on him, and sometimes he thinks he makes it up because he wants to feel it, he wants to sit next to Chirrut and talk about what he has experienced in the Force even if it is so little, even if it is barely anything because Chirrut will perk up, Chirrut will hold his hands or his face and press him, want every little detail, want to eat it up because it is so good. And Baze has trouble denying Chirrut anything, holds his hands out, open, constantly, gives everything he can and fetches what he does not have so that he can give that too. 

But the rest of the world, the press of it, the want of it, makes impressions on Baze’s body, on Baze’s mind. He speaks seldom and, other than time spent with Chirrut, he prefers his own company or the company of the younger initiates, likes books, huddles into things that do not remind him of the streets of his youth, of years spent bouncing from place to place, hardly any of them good, hardly any of the people kind, and the only thing he could do was hunch his body over his heart to protect it and learn to defend it any way he could whether that be with fists or feet or teeth. 

Baze came to the temple dirty, wild, had to have years of street fighting eased out of him with meditation and calm hands and tenderness. And his great heart responded. And his great heart sang. Singing that maybe led Chirrut to him, he thinks, might have played some part in catching Chirrut’s eye. Chirrut who knows so much more than people should, and even more than people think he does because of the glib smile, because of the boundless antics, because of the trickery and the teasing and the refusal to settle like a stone. Chirrut will be flower petals in the breeze always, a spinning top that never falls. At least when people are watching, at least when people can see. All the people judging him, all the people expecting things of him, great things, Force things, as though he were a Jedi, which he is not, which he could never be, which he does not even want because they read the words together, they read the concepts and the dictates and the rules, and Chirrut sat there, faced screwed up, face pulled in anger, in the most blatant expression of fury that Baze had ever, has ever, seen on him--Baze was sad more than angry, hurt more than enraged because none of it seemed fair and all of it spoke of separation if Chirrut ever wanted to consider it, though he was too old, of course, but it was Chirrut, and Chirrut would find a way to get what he wanted if he set his mind on it--and then he gripped Baze’s face and said, “They’re fools. They’re fools if they think you grow stronger for tossing things like love away,” and kissed him. There was no more discussion of the Jedi after that, and whenever anyone else brought it up, Chirrut just clicked his tongue in that dismissive way of his and refused to even enter into the conversation. “We know the Force better than they do,” were his only words on the subject.

When he falls, when the top finally runs itself itself out and tips on its side, Baze is there. Chirrut will sit quietly in the darkness, huddled into corners, lips moving through the mantras, and Baze will sit beside him or across from him, touching him only lightly to ground him, and they will pray together. Or sometimes Baze will make tea and read aloud, letting his voice fill the spaces of their room for once, walls that are far more used to Chirrut’s echoing cacophony than his own voice, which seems to sink more than soar, which seems to cover more than echo. But he will read or he will pray or sometimes he will just sit in silence and watch and wait because what is time anyway. He has time, would give Chirrut all the time he could load into his arms if the other wanted that. There is nothing that has to be done in a certain time. They make up the concept of it themselves, they create the press and the rush of it. The world, the Force, knows little of it, does things at the speed with which they need to be done. Flowers bloom and rains come and fire burns as they will and not looking at a chrono to make sure that the time is right. So it doesn’t matter to Baze how long it takes for Chirrut to right himself, for Chirrut to crawl into his lap or loop his arms around him, pressing bodily into his back, to kiss him or tease him, to come back from wherever he settles when he needs the silence. Baze can give him all the time he needs for he is patient, everlasting.

Chirrut is less so, which he proves with fingers purposefully dragged across Baze’s upper thighs to call his attention back to the present because has has not been answered yet, has barely even been acknowledged. It is a good way to get his attention but not a great way to make him focus because now all Baze can think of is Chirrut’s hands on his thighs and how close those nimble fingers are to his cock, and that makes him stir, makes him start to grow hard at the thought of it all even though he should pay attention to the words. Chirrut is so many words wrapped into flesh, so many sounds and so many stories and so much talking. After they met, Baze started reading, read everything he could get his hands on, spent hours hidden in the library devouring all the words he could because he needed to be able to keep up, he needed to master words so that he could understand Chirrut. The greatest thing he learned was that there is always more, always more words, always more layers, always something else to understand, but it helped, and he loves them both: words and Chirrut, words because they are of Chirrut and of themselves and Chirrut because he is Chirrut. 

“I said,” Chirrut starts, his tone slight accusation though still bright enough to indicate that he takes no real offense to it, “that I broke the vase on purpose.”

“Hmmmm?” The question is almost just a sound, just a low noise of the moon shifting beneath them, of the kyber humming in the caves, and the rush of all the water there. Chirrut has said that Baze sounds like Jedha, that he is carved from the moon itself and that it why it is so hard for him sometimes to be his human self because his rock self, his water self, his kyber self, is so much stronger. Baze knows, of course, that he is not kyber, but he feels like the rest of the sentiment could be true.

Chirrut huffs, a sigh against his chest that he follows with a kiss, a nip to the bared skin, and Baze shifts with that because all the blood is rushing to one place and this is not the best way for Chirrut to have a conversation with him, but he will try. “Have you forgotten the vase? I did not think you would ever forget the vase. Are you the same man who still nags at me about the leap from rooftop to rooftop that I did not clear five years ago? I thought your memory astounding. Or perhaps I was beneath your notice then.” Now his other hand is threading into Baze’s hair, tugging at the strands and stroking over his scalp, none of which is fair because this kind of touch is Baze’s biggest downfall, and Chirrut knows it, presses him to never cut the locks because he wants something to hold on to, because he needs a way to capture his full attention. As if Baze has ever had eyes or mind for anything other than him. As if Chirrut needs to do anything other than exit to capture his full attention.

“Never,” he mumbles, words barely loud and clear enough to be words rather than just another noise made deep in his chest, though Chirrut would understand either way. 

No, he remembers the vase. The blue one, made of stone carved so very thin, so very fine that it was almost translucent as though made of glass. He marveled at it when he arrived, had not dared to touch it or breathe on it because he was worried about breaking it, ruining its perfection. 

He used to think of Chirrut like that. Chirrut who he had spied in the halls. Chirrut with his beautiful mouth, and those twinkling eyes. Chirrut in the training rooms all fine muscle and toned. Chirrut who could beat anyone, best anyone, lift anyone even initiates thrice his size with ease because he was that strong, that dedicated to the art of his body. Chirrut who people spoke of either in hushed, awed whispers or annoyed sighs. Baze had seen him. Baze had marked him and sought him out in crowds with his eyes and his ears alone but never dared stray near him because, oh, what a boy, what a star, what a beauty. And Baze had been Baze, all the course things of Jedha in one package. What would a starboy ever want with a sandboy, he had asked himself. Nothing was the obvious answer so he had stayed away, lingered, let the masters tame him, let the fights bleed out of him, let his heart heal and thrum and sing, been convinced that his path and the starboy’s would never cross and was fine with that because he could still dream.

And then the vase.

“I remember the vase.”

Lovely, perfect blue. And the noise that was it shattering, the awful crack that was it hitting the floor and then the crescendo of it splintering into so many pieces that no amount of care could ever mend it again. It seemed like it had happened in slow motion, it seemed like time and the universe had ceased to move at its normal pace so that he could watch it, experience every moment as it broke. His favorite thing. His favorite thing in all the universe obliterated. And he had worried it was a sign, he had worried it was a marking that this life was going to spiral into something dark and dreadful and painful like everything that had been before.

Only it wasn’t. It wasn’t anything like that; it didn’t mean anything like that.

He had stood there, looking down at it, at the pieces, at all his dreams cracked and broken beyond repair, almost on the verge of tears because he wasn’t sure he could stand the loss of this good life after having just found it, when there was a hand at his elbow, when there was the scent of the wind and sweat and something like jasmine under it. “Don’t look so sad, Malbus. It’s just a vase.”

And it had been Chirrut there. It had taken all his breath away, it had taken all his strength not to sigh and say, “But it was you. That was you. That was my wish of you.” Instead he had said, like a fool, like an idiot, “How do you know my name?”

Chirrut had laughed like only Chirrut could laugh, head back, the sound a sound only like itself, the sound a sound that filled the whole hall, filled the entire temple, a sound so big not even the moon could contain it, but Baze took it and pressed it inside of his body, as much as he could carry, for later. “I know you,” was the only answer and then his arm threading through Baze’s arm, so forward in touching, and Baze, normally contact shy, completely okay with it because it made sense, because it touched some chord in him that he had never known before. 

“You only had eyes for that stupid vase,” Chirrut accuses, biting at his throat, which makes Baze tilt his head back to give him better access, giving in to him completely.

“It was safer to look at the vase. It was safer to love the vase.” His voice is breathy, broken, ground out slowly, a fight to keep talking at all, which Chirrut knows but will keep pressing anyway because he loves these bedroom confessions, loves it when Baze comes undone with words and kisses, loves when he can pull every ounce of emotion from his lips.

He bites at his collarbone, and Baze’s fingers clench tightly into the flesh of his thigh, which will leave more wanton marks for him to threaten to put on display. “Stupid vase,” he repeats.

Baze laughs, and it is rocks falling down a mountain. “You were jealous of stone.”

“Shut up,” Chirrut says, surges forward, capturing his mouth, drinking down any new words that he might say, and Baze loses himself in it. Here, here he could drown, Here, here he could linger forever in the embrace of this man who was jealous of a vase because it caught and held his attention when he wanted it. It is as endearing as it is strange.

“Dear,” he whispers when Chirrut pulls away slightly, enough for them to both gasp, lips kiss full and dark. “Beloved. Prettier than any vase. It was my substitute for you. I didn’t think I’d ever be worthy of the real thing.” Love drunk, touch drunk. Words always spill better, faster this way when he is love intoxicated and reeling from lack of oxygen after being thoroughly kissed.

“You think too little of yourself, love,” Chirrut murmurs, a condemnation with no sting, and then there is no more time for words because they are caught in the undertow of the emotion, of the gravity that pulls their bodies together.

Chirrut’s fingers ghost over his cock, and he moans, grips, tugs Chirrut even closer if such a thing is possible because sometimes he cannot tell where they stop, they melt together, edges blurring like a painting left in the rain, colors all running and mixing, overlapping. He would fold Chirrut into the great expanse of his body if he could, carry him everywhere, protect him. Chirrut would never accept that, of course, doesn’t particularly like being coddled or kept, and Baze is fine with this, loves it, but it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t do it, if he needed to or if Chirrut wanted him to. Protector, guardian, lover, friend. These words are all one and the same to Baze. They all mean the same thing, to be there, to follow, to catch him if ever he falls.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://sarkastically.tumblr.com/).


End file.
